FBI plans crackdown on cyber crime, with arrests imminent

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will aggressively crack down on cyber crime over the next few weeks, with a bureau official advising the public to anticipate indictments, searches, and multiple arrests.

Robert Anderson Jr. told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit in
Washington on Wednesday that the bureau has revamped its focus on
cyber crime and will show a “much more offensive side” to its
enforcement efforts soon.

“There is a philosophy change. If you are going to attack
Americans, we are going to hold you accountable,” he said.
“If we can reach out and touch you, we are going to reach out
and touch you.”

FBI director James Comey appointed Anderson as the executive
assistant director of cyber enforcement at the bureau in March,
putting him in charge of international operations and critical
incident response, among other duties. Before taking his current
post, Anderson oversaw counter intelligence and espionage
investigation at the FBI, and seems to have brought that
mentality to his current responsibility.

In explaining recent examples of the bureau’s cyber enforcement,
Anderson mentioned the case of Dmitry Belorossov, a Russian
hacker accused of operating a botnet that targeted an estimated
7,000 Americans. Belorossov was arrested at a Spanish airport
and, after an extradition battle between the US and Russia,
ordered to stand trial in the US.

Anderson warned that the bureau will not hesitate to charge
foreign suspects accused of committing crimes in countries that
refuse to extradite to the US. The FBI has traditionally been
reluctant to do so, he said, to avoid embarrassment to other
nations.

“There’s a lot of countries that will not extradite,” he
told Reuters. “That will not stop us from
pressing forward and charging those individuals and making it
public.”

The new, aggressive policy is likely to lead to a slew of new
arrests, Anderson continued, adding that Belorossov would be a
relatively minor target compared to some of the suspects the FBI
is currently investigating.

Other hackers could benefit from bureau leniency if they choose
to cooperate. Hector Monsegur – founder of the Lulzsec hacker
group perhaps better known as Sabu – has seen his sentencing
hearing delayed multiple times in exchange for helping the
government infiltrate high-value foreign targets.

Anderson refused to say how many former suspects are now on the
FBI’s payroll, but Jim Lewis, a senior fellow with the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, told journalists Jim Fenkle
and Joseph Menn that the agency relies on more outside help than
ever before, with perhaps as many as a dozen hackers.

Along with the tried and true distributed denial of service
attacks and attempts at identity theft, experts have warned that
cyber crime will become much more serious over the next decade.
Future threats could include potential cyber assault on new
vehicle models, home appliances, or entertainment devices, as
well as more dangerous ransomware attacks that victimize online
finances.

Hackers recently targeted Target, obtaining data from as many as
110 million customers. Ed Lowery, a special agent for the
criminal investigations unit of the US Secret Service, which also
investigates cyber crime, said the public should expect more
incidents like this to occur before organizations learn about
their vulnerabilities.

“What we have seen is a change in the sophistication of
attackers and the attack vectors,” he told Eweek.com. “These are professional
criminals; they study their victims, and they are looking for
vulnerabilities they can exploit.”